Here's the full P/E and P/B breakdown for the UK listed housebuilders, sorted by P/B (the more reliable metric for a deeply cyclical sector):
Valuation Summary (as of late July 2026) #
| Builder | Ticker | Market Cap | Trailing P/E | Forward P/E | P/B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Persimmon | PSN | £3.51B | 12.4 | 10.6 | 0.97 |
| Berkeley Group | BKG | £3.19B | 10.4 | 11.9 | 0.87 |
| Taylor Wimpey | TW. | £2.90B | 29.8 | 13.9 | 0.69 |
| Bellway | BWY | £2.22B | 15.0 | 12.3 | 0.63 |
| Barratt Redrow | BTRW | £3.90B | 18.7 | 11.3 | 0.50 |
| Crest Nicholson | CRST | £0.17B | neg* | 13.6 | 0.24 |
| Vistry | VTY | £0.78B | 5.8 | 5.8 | 0.23 |
*Crest Nicholson had a loss-making year
What stands out #
Every single one trades below book value except Persimmon — and Persimmon's only just below at 0.97x. That's rare. The sector as a whole is priced for a recession that may or may not fully materialize.
The P/E story is misleading in places. Taylor Wimpey's trailing P/E of nearly 30x looks expensive, but it reflects a temporary earnings dip (forward P/E is 13.9x). Same for Barratt Redrow — trailing 18.7x drops to 11.3x forward as the Redrow merger synergies are expected to flow through. Trailing is backwards-looking noise in a sector where earnings swing wildly with the cycle.
Vistry looks absurdly cheap at 0.23x book and 5.8x earnings — but the market's pricing in genuine distress. They're the partnerships/affordable housing model, and that model has had well-publicised problems. The question is whether the market has overshot. Crest Nicholson at 0.24x book is similar — deeply distressed, with negative trailing earnings.
Berkeley is the quality pick on these numbers. P/E of 10.4 (lowest trailing among the profitable names), P/B of 0.87, and unlike the others it trades at a premium because of its unique London/South East brownfield landbank. The market tends to give Berkeley a higher multiple because its land portfolio is genuinely scarcer.
Persimmon at 0.97x book is pricing in very little optimism but still the most expensive on P/B — it's traditionally been the sector's highest-return-on-capital builder, and the market hasn't fully abandoned that premium.
The bigger picture #
For context, over the last housing cycle (roughly 2013–2021), these companies routinely traded at 1.5–2.5x book value. Persimmon hit 2.6x in 2019. Berkeley hit 2.75x in 2015. The entire sector is trading at roughly a 50–80% discount to mid-cycle multiples.
The bear case justifying these multiples: house prices falling (Rightmove showing four consecutive months of declines), mortgage rates sticky at ~6.6%, build cost inflation from the Iran conflict, and potential rent-freeze policies.
The bull case: the UK structurally builds ~200k homes a year against a need of ~300k. Planning reform is the most pro-supply policy shift in a generation. If mortgage rates drop 50–75bp, these companies re-rate hard and fast. The balance sheets are mostly strong (Bellway debt/equity 5.4%, Barratt Redrow 3.2%) — no one's going bust.